Snapchat Dives into Content Discovery

Allison Howen

Posted on 1.28.2015

Snapchat made a major move this week with the launch of a new feature called “Discover.”

With Discover, users are able to find Stories from a variety of editorial teams, such as CNN, Comedy Central and Food Network. According to Snapchat’s announcement, Discover is the result of a collaboration with media partners to build a storytelling format that puts the narrative first. Moreover, Snapchat puts an emphasis on the fact that this feature is not social media.

“Social media companies tell us what to read based on what’s most recent or most popular. We see it differently. We count on editors and artists, not clicks and shares, to determine what’s important,” the company’s blog post states.

Snapchat goes on to note that Discover is built for creatives. For example, rather than having artists accommodate new technologies to distribute their work, Snapchat decided to build its technology to serve the art. In fact, each edition includes full screen photos and videos, long form layouts and advertising.

It is also important to note that every edition found in Discover is refreshed after 24 hours. In the updated version of the Snapchat app, Discover can be accessed from the Stories screen. Users simply need to click on the circle at the top of the Stories screen and then choose a brand to view its daily Story edition.

It is clear that this is a big step in Snapchat’s plan to monetize its platform. It will be interesting to see how Snapchat users engage with this new content discovery feature and how Snapchat will expand upon the feature in the future (pushing consumers to take action on advertiser websites, to download apps in the App Store, etc.).